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Friday, December 16, 2011

Rahul Dravid's speech at Sir Don Bradman Oration - My Thoughts

Rahul Dravid on
Wednesday, Dec 14 became the first Indian to deliver a speech at Sir Donald
Bradman Oration in Canberra.

You can watch the whole speech here:

Well, my thoughts on my
Idol's awe-inspiring speech at the 2011 Sir Donald Bradman Oration might have come a
day or two late. That's only because I was left completely speechless by
Rahul's amazing oratory skills, his dignity, his modesty, his integrity, his
humility, his pride, his knowledge about the game and its history, his
wittiness, his meticulously chosen words, his thoughtful and considered
observations... well just about everything. It was an absolutely brilliant
speech, one of the most compelling and insightful speeches I have ever listened
to by a sportsman. It took me almost a day to recover from that awesomeness, so
I finally started to jot down my thoughts about that speech.

Humbled as Dravid was
for being the first foreigner to deliver the Sir Donald Bradman Oration speech at The
War Memorial in Canberra held every year to celebrate the life and career of
the greatest Cricketer to have ever played the game, Sir Donald Bradman.

He started off by
talking about the bond between India and Australia which goes beyond Cricket
pitches. Much before Indians and Australians were competitors on the pitch,
they were comrades off it, who fought wars together. Dravid also took some time
to remember the unknown soldiers from both countries who laid down their lives
in the war.

Next, Dravid spoke about
how the great Don who never having played a single Test match in India still is
the most venerated Cricketer. Later he went on to share some anecdotes and fun stories about Bradman, some of it were very witty and had the audience in
splits.

Bradman passed away on
Feb 25, 2001 just two days before the historic Test series between India and
Australia were to begin. Dravid thought Bradman would have loved to watch that
series which is now considered as one of the greatest ever in the history of
Cricket.

Dravid continued to talk
about the India-Australia rivalry over the past decade which Australia
dominated. He said India was the only team to stand up to the Aussie domination
and the quality of Cricket played between two sides has been uplifting and
exhilarating and also sometimes controversial. And hence whenever the two sides
meet the anticipation and expectation is immense. And so in the coming two
months of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, players on both sides will want to
deliver their best.

“If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.”Image Courtesy: Google Images

Now let’s glance upon some of the issues that Dravid
touched upon:

“At the moment, to
much of the outside world, Indian cricket represents only two things - money
and power.”

He chose to speak about
how Indian Cricket which is perceived by the outside world as only representing
two things, Money and Power. He said this one-dimensional, often clichéd image
relentlessly repeated is not what Indian cricket is really all about. Rahul
gave quite a few anecdotes and explained how the wealth generated by Indian
Cricket by million-dollar deals and television rights had actually transformed
the game of princes and well-to-do businessmen into that of the people, whatever
their language, background or financial standing. This was beautifully demonstrated by an illustration of diversity now found within the Indian
dressing room. He compared Indian Cricket’s growth in the past 10 to 15
years with that of the country itself. Due to the revenues generated since the
past two decades, the standard of play has improved and so has the facilities
and the game has spread to various other parts of the country and not just the
big cities like Bangalore, Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi etc. Dravid gave examples of
some success stories like Zaheer Khan, Virender Sehwag, Munaf Patel and Umesh
Yadav who have made it big and have earned a place in the Indian side, coming from
small towns with no proper facilities.

“India has played 227 ODI's at home; the October
five-match series against England was the first time that the grounds have not
been full for an ODI featuring the Indian team.”

Rahul also touched on
many other relevant issues concerning the game of Cricket including dwindling
of crowds in International Cricket, which in his words has reached an
"alarming" state in the past few years. The reason for it being flaws
in scheduling of Cricket matches, unnecessary ODI's being played which don't
have any context. Or maybe it was spectator-fatigue. Whatever the reason maybe,
he said the fans have sent a clear message and it’s high time something needs
to be done to rectify it. He also explained how empty stands do not make for
good television viewing, which in turn will affect the television ratings. And
the fall in ratings will make the advertisers eventually looking elsewhere. He
said it’s really important to give the average Cricket fan what he deserves;
disrespecting them is like disrespecting the game itself.

“If you have nothing
to hide, you have nothing to fear.”

Next he spoke about
another important aspect of the game which is bringing the game down,
corruption. In-spite of strong anti-corruption measures, the internet and other
modern technologies will always be a step ahead of any anti-corruption
regulation. So, Dravid suggested that the onus should be on the players
themselves to be willing to be monitored and regulated closely even if it means
giving up a little bit of freedom of movement and privacy. He also suggested
players not to say no to dope tests and also undergoing lie-detector tests as
an option to tackle corruption. It would certainly help the innocent come
clean.

“Charting out a clear
road map for all the three formats is a challenge.”

Dravid next touched upon
another important aspect of the game that is balancing all the three formats of
the game. He explained how a series containing 2 Tests, 7 ODI’s and a few
Twenty20’s thrown in will only hinder the true development of the player and also
throw the scheduling completely off gear.

“No one ever fell in
love with Test cricket because they wanted to be a businessman. Not everything
of value comes at a price.”

He stressed Test Cricket
is the gold standard and the bests of the game know this is the format their
greatness as a Cricketer will be judged by. And so, Test Cricket needs to be
protected. He suggested a few measures in this regard:

1) Day-Night Tests

2) Test Championship

3)Taking the game to smaller cities or playing
in grounds which have smaller capacity

4) Or maybe reviving some old Cricket venues

He also called for
cutting down on the number of ODI’s played which don’t have much context,
rather he suggested the focus should be on the main ICC Tournaments like the
World Cup and the Champions Trophy. This would ensure that all 50-over matches
would build up for those tournaments and will also cut down on the number of
ODI’s played. The matches which will be played will also have a context.

For Twenty20’s Dravid said it has its best place as a
contest between domestic teams or clubs. A view shared by many dignitaries in
the crowd including the Cricket Australia Chairmen, past and present.

Before concluding,
Dravid said, it was still possible to feel the same rush of excitement that
accompanied his first boundary, first catch, or first victory. He said
every Cricketer should cherish it and hang on to it.

After enthralling the audience for over 40 minutes with a wide range of topics like issues of money,
attendances, formats and corruption, everyone rose to applaud a brilliant and insightful speech on the spirit of Cricket by a Legend whose oratory skills are
as classy and masterful as his batting itself.

@Sujatha: Thank You very much. Dravid is finally getting the appreciation and respect that he deserves. He has taken a firm stand against some of the significant issues concerning the game of Cricket and has sent a strong message to the administrators to implement much stronger measures for the betterment of the game.

If dravid would play 2years more,surely he would be so close to sachin tendulkar's records,"THE WALL" is real hero for all cricketers,he was the only hero in gangully's successfull captaincy season,SALUTE to him and his unforgetable cricket career....

Hi Akshay,It’s a nice article. Loved it.I am Sudarshan, a panelist of “Behind The Wall”(BTW), a project being done by Dravid fans. It’s a book on Dravid from fan’s perspective. It will contain fans feelings n opinions put through articles, poems and sketches. It will also have some guest interviews from some of the stalwarts in the cricketing world. I liked your article and your article fits very well into the theme of our book. With your permission we would like to include it in the book.

(We took permission from the man himself to write the book.)

Please send your article to rktwall@gmail.com (official id ). To know more about the project or for further communication, you can contact me through sudarshan.annadanam@gmail.com (or through our official id).

About Me

Akshay Kumar G, is an Engineer by profession and a Fighter at heart. He loves to write, although he's not very good at it. Possesses a unique world-view and thinks he can bring about a change in this world with his unconventional ideas and methods.